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Editorial

An abuse of power

Full investigation needed of IRS targeting of conservative groups

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Tuesday May 14, 2013 6:09 AM

The admission by the Internal Revenue Service on Friday that it had targeted about 75 conservative groups, including ones in Ohio, for far-reaching probes of their nonprofit status merits alarm and investigation.

The follow-up revelation that IRS officials had known about this for nearly two years is incredible. It smacks of tactics previously associated with the Nixon administration and should lead to decisive action to stop any future politically motivated witch hunts by the IRS.

For more than a year, mostly small, grass-roots conservative groups around the country have complained of being hit with broad and intrusive information requests when applying for nonprofit status. The IRS denied it, right through the 2012 election. Only Friday, in response to a direct question at an American Bar Association event, did IRS official Lois Lerner drop the bomb: She acknowledged that her agency had singled out groups with the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. These groups were asked to fill out extensive questionnaires and hand over donor lists, a clear and improper overreach.

Lerner blamed “low-level” employees in Cincinnati — the main IRS office that deals with applications for 501(c)4 status — and apologized. She claimed higher-ups didn’t know about the targeting until very recently. But a day later, citing a pending Inspector General’s report, the Associated Press reported that Lerner was told of the practice in June 2011. It was not until January 2012, the AP said, that the IRS altered the criteria for flagging groups to “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement.”

Unpacking this stunning set of revelations will take time; Congressional leaders of both parties quickly called for an investigation. In Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Cincinnati, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, have been leaders in questioning the IRS targeting. But what’s clear is that people and groups whose political beliefs were opposed to the administration’s were targeted at a time when they were helping the other party win elections and promote fiscal restraint. President Barack Obama yesterday was correct to call such actions “outrageous.” It seems unnecessary, and more than a little odd, that he added that IRS officials will be held accountable “if in fact” they engaged in the practices, since the IRS itself already has admitted them. Using a government agency to intimidate and suppress political opponents strikes at the heart of democracy.

The Ohio connection is troubling. It’s a stretch to believe that “low-level” scapegoats in Cincinnati would have gone rogue; at the very least, as New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat posited over the weekend, such an action likely could reflect a belief encouraged by allies of the Obama administration who time and again have slammed the tea party as an expression of “crypto-fascist, crypto-racist rage” and blamed it for everything from political losses to high-profile crimes.

Certainly, the 501(c)4 category bears scrutiny to see that organizations under that classification are not just political groups operating under a thin veneer of being “social-welfare” advocates. But such examination should be made completely objectively, and should include all groups, including Organizing for Action, which is simply the Obama campaign operation under a different name.